1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information recording apparatus for recording information on a disc-like recording medium, in particular, to controlling ejection of a medium in a system having a shock-proof function based on intermittent driving.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, an information recording apparatus using a disc-like recording medium (hereinafter, referred to simply as a disc) has been principally used as peripheral equipment of a personal computer or the like. Since the information recording apparatus is advantageous in portability of a medium or in rapid random access response, the information recording medium has been developed as high-capacity data storage equipment. In recent years, a small-diameter high-capacity disc has been employed for a high-definition still camera or video camera and the like with a rapid increase in the density of the disc and therefore has achieved a remarkable breakthrough as a principal medium for image pickup/recording equipment.
An image pickup/recording apparatus using the disc as a recording medium has a function called shock-proof against a hand jiggle, a vibration, an unexpected shock or the like during photographing/recording to increase a shock resistance for a recording/reproduction function.
As such a technology, for example, a technology described in Japanese Patent No. 3227756 can be cited. According to the technology described in Japanese Patent No. 3227756, recording signals are temporarily accumulated in a memory. Meanwhile, disc driving is stopped to wait for an access. The disc driving is an operation which consumes a large amount of electric power such as spindle motor driving for rotating a disc, thread motor driving for controlling the position of an optical pickup to a predetermined address location on the disc, actuator driving in charge of control of the position of an objective lens, and recording laser power driving (hereinafter, the functions of driving a disc are collectively referred to as “drive”).
When a sufficient amount of recording signals is accumulated in the memory, the disc drive is started. Subsequently, recorded data is read out from the memory at a high speed to record the read data on the disc. Upon termination of the recording on the disc, the disc drive is stopped again. Since a transmission rate of recording the data on the disc is several times higher than that of the input recording signals, the shock-proof function as described above can be realized.
An operation of repeating the operation and the stop of the drive in predetermined cycles is called intermittent driving. The intermittent driving contributes not only to increase a shock resistance but also more to keep down power consumption for driving the drive as the time period for stopping the disc drive becomes longer. Therefore, the intermittent driving greatly contributes to power saving of the entire image pickup system. Moreover, since a drive stop period can be ensured, a return processing (hereinafter, referred to as retry) can be performed by using a standby time even if a servo error occurs due to a disturbance or the like on a casing. Therefore, the continuity and the reliability of a recording or reproducing operation can be increased.
In particular, the shock-proof function using a high-capacity memory has recently been realized with the increase in capacity and the reduction in price of a semiconductor memory. By setting a long intermittent stop period of the disc drive to stop a drive operation as long as possible, a remarkable power saving effect can be obtained to support long-time battery driving in portable equipment.
With the shock-proof function of the related art, a recording disc cannot be removed from equipment immediately after a user issues a recording end command. This is because an operation of recording recorded data accumulated in the memory on the disc is required after the user issues the recording end command to temporarily accumulate the recorded data in the memory. Therefore, as the amount of data accumulated in the memory becomes larger, a time required to record the data on the disc becomes correspondingly longer. To be specific, even if the user issues the recording end command, the user cannot remove the disc during information transfer from the memory to the disc and therefore is made to wait. In particular, for image pickup/recording of moving images with a video camera, it is important to ensure the continuity of a series of moving images. Therefore, a high speed is required to complete disc change within an extremely short period of time.